I had a bit of a breakthrough with the interpretation of Hyamson tree late last night.

I assume that you have a copy of this tree Debbie, if not we can e mail a copy. I was looking at the 1851 census entry for Jacob (John) Jacobs (son of David senior) a retired butcher and widower. He was living with his son Henry at 27½ Duke Street, Henry’s wife Rebecca and 3 children Phillis, Jane and John junior. Note that Henry’s daughter Phillis would probably be named after her Paternal grandmother Phillis, which would confirm that this is the right Jacob. Then look at the left hand side of the Hyamson tree. There is a Jacob (Koppel) with sons Henry (Hirsch) and Phillip (Pheis) and Henry appears to have 3 children, the 2 eldest indicated at 27 1/2 Duke Street and the youngest indicated at 1 Duke Street.This appears to tie up exactly with the left hand side of the tree. The children’s names do not exactly match but this is not unusual and I am working on the interpretation at the moment. As there is a Jacob Jacobs married to Phillis on the right hand tree I would say that the left hand side is a continuation of the right hand side. However it leaves further mysteries.Firstly, Hyamson has not included David in the left hand side of the tree. Could this be a simple error?Secondly, Hyamson has Phillip or Henry at the top of the tree and not Jacob. I believe that he is assuming one or the other based on naming patterns but there is also Jacob in the naming pattern.Lastly, the biggest mystery of all, in the London Jews (pre 1850) database there is a Joseph Jacobs in Post Office directories 1846 at 1 Duke Street, Whitechapel Road which is The Freemasons Arms Public House. Joseph is confirmed as Publican of the Freemasons Arms in the London Public House PO Directory 1851. However he does not appear in the census at this address as far as I can see. Who is Joseph? Could he be the brother of Henry and Phillip (further son of Jacob & Phillis)?In the note bottom right of Hyamson’s trees is he referring to Joseph at 4 1/2 Duke Street?[Peter Wales]

There was a small separate page from Hyamson which showed Philip Jacobs and one son ( in Hebrew)- I did not send any of you this page. With regard to your new information are any of the relatives changing their first names again and their occupations or are they having multiple occupations?How does all this data look mapped out? Also, Debbie is busily hunting down Nerwich relatives – can we pull any of the data together so that it is mapped out?[Phil Kirby]

The 3 children’s names indicated against Jacob do not tie up with the names in the census. However apart from Judah the other 2 names in Hyamson’ s tree do not look right. I have been through hundreds/thousands of Jewish names in varios records and they are not indicated in any of the lists. The dates given against the eldest and youngest of the three children could be birth dates. They do tie up with dates in the census. However the date for the middle child does not tie up. The occupation of Butcher for Jacob or Henry does not change as far as I have seen.[Peter Wales]